I have a problem. Sometimes I can't say no to a cool edit. I'll be shooting a project and then I get an idea of some little thing that would be a cool effect or great transition piece and I'll spend hours perfecting it in post. Sometimes these are little things that I'm not sure a client will think that much of, or they'll be ideas that really make an impression. But either way, I can't not do it.

Jon and Karli were married in Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. It was an incredible venue and they were a fun couple to follow all day. For their exit, they wanted to leave through a tunnel of sparklers held up by their guests. After their exit they wanted to do some long-exposure shots with pictures and words showing up as traced lines drawn with sparklers.

Long exposure doesn't exactly work on video. Aside from effects edited in post, you can't get the same effect. Karli suggested we could do it with the video and I told her it just wouldn't be possible. We made sure to record Jon and Karli with the sparklers and then packed up for the night.

When we got home I was looking through the footage and got an idea. At the time I hadn't had much experience with motion graphics or any sort of animation, but I wanted to learn. I spent a few hours learning Apple Motion and another few hours trying to apply it and we able to accomplish this:

This wasn't in their contract. It wasn't something I had promised to the couple. It might not have even been that big of a deal to them, but it was a great closing shot to wrap up their highlight video and I wanted to make their highlight video great.

This is what we mean when we say that video is our passion. Regardless of the time it takes or what the minimum requirements may be, we want to make great video. This means creating a unique video for each client, not a set pattern that we use every time. It is so much more rewarding to be able to create video that is great than to create video that is acceptable. Great video is our passion.